Whispers in the Dark
by Ginger and Brigette
Summary: She's as mysterious as the night sky, as silent as a soft breeze. But everyone shuns her, and she doesn't know why. When she sets out to leave behind her terrible past and find a better future, she finds that a better future isn't possible for her.
1. Prologue

_Whisper's mental talking._

_**Thoughts.**_

Talking.

* * *

_Whispers in the Dark_

—_Prologue—_

"Oh my God, don't look, Akira!" one of the Kunoichi said, shielding her younger brother's eyes.

A couple boys looked over and wrinkled their noses in disgust when they caught site of what the Kunoichi was talking about. The other Shinobi-in-training turned their heads back to their work as the object of the comments walked past. They didn't phase her—she had gone through worse.

"Who _is_ she?" one girl asked, looking at her sparring partner.

"Her name's Kiya. She's from the Freak-Show clan." the boy said.

"That's not nice," she said.

"Not what I meant. Her last name's Kikei-Kyoshoku, meaning 'freak-show.' "

"Oh," she replied. "That's freaky."

"Yeah, but no one can call her Kiya. She's got issues, and she tells everyone that she goes by the name 'Whisper.' "

"That's creepy," the girl said, returning to her sparring match.

Meanwhile, 'Whisper' sat down at a table far from the rest of them. She was humming to herself in the highest volume she could, which was just above a whisper volume. She sung the lyrics in her head.

'_**What happened to you, You've played the victim for so long now in this game, What I thought was true, Is made of fiction and I'm following the same, But if I try to make sense of this mess I'm in, I'm not sure where I should begin, I'm fallin', I'm fallin', Now I'm in over my head, With something I said, Completely misread, I'm better off dead, And now I can see, How fake you can be, This hypocrisy is beginning to get to me,'**_

"Whisper," came a voice from behind. It was so familiar she didn't have to turn her white-haired head. Yukio, her distant cousin, sat down beside her. "They aren't bothering you, are they?" he asked, shooting a look at the sparring ninja.

Whisper looked at him clamly, answering him mentally. _"No."_

Yukio vaguely remembered telling his sister about Whisper's mental communication. _"Whisper can't talk above a whisper," Yukio told his younger sister, Shiori. "She had an accident when she was a kid." He didn't dare tell her the truth._

"Are you alright?" he asked, distracting himself from his thoughts. "There hasn't been any..._accidents_...over the weekend, right?"

Whisper shook her silvery-white head. _"No, Yukio, there hasn't been any 'accidents,' as you call them."_

"Are you telling the truth? Because, I swear, if he does anything..." he said, threatening the life of her father.

_"I have a bruise. Okay? Are you happy now, Yukio?"_ she snapped. She felt guilty, and apologized. _"I'm sorry, I shouldn't snap at you, of all people."_

"It's OK, Kii-chan," Yukio said, using her old childhood nickname.

Whisper surpressed a shiver.**_ "At least he didn't say Kiya..." _**she thought.


	2. Chapter 1

_Whispers in the Dark_

—_Chapter 1__—_

Yukio stopped and looked at his cousin's door five hours later. It was twilight, and they had been training all day, carefully keeping away from the other ninja.

"_Yukio, go _home_." _Whisper said firmly. _"I'll be_ fine_."_

Yukio wrinkled his nose, resisting the urge to snort. She would _not_ be fine. She'd never be fine—at least not while that_ thing _she called her father was still alive and living in that house.

"I'm not leaving," he said.

_"You can't come in."_

"I'll stay outside your bedroom window," he said simply.

Whisper narrowed her eyes. _"You wouldn't _dare_."_

Yukio smirked. "I would."

"Don't even _think_ about it, Yukio," she hissed physically.

He stepped back. If she used her voice, she was dead serious.

_**'She's dead serious,'**_ he thought. _**'I should go home . . .'**_

Whisper just nodded, as if reading his thoughts and slipped inside her three-story house. Why they needed three stories, she never knew. Her eyes traveled to her fathers limp figure. _**'He's probably passed out,'**_ she thought, _**'No need to worry.'**_

She climbed the staircase as silently as she did anything. Whisper spotted a patch of blood in the corner of the 23rd step. It brought back the violent and not-so-happy memories of before she was Whisper and not Kiya Kikei-Kyoshoku.

_"Nee-Chan?" 4-year-old Kiya asked, leaning over her blood-covered sister. "Nee-Chan, are you alright?"_

_11-year-old Kita just smiled and ruffled her hair. "I'm fine, Kiya, don't worry." She smiled weakly again and stood, walking back to her room at a slow, painful pace._

_Kiya stared after her sister's retreating back. She looked at her father's limp figure on the couch, and then at the shattered beer bottle he had thrown at the wall earlier. Kiya shook her head, not understanding why the bottle had been there, or why her sister was partially covered in blue-violet patches. She shrugged, holding her silver-and-black stuffed toy wolf closely. Her sister would tell her if she wanted to._

Whisper shook her head firmly. She was no longer Kiya Gurei-Metsuki Kikei-Kyoshoku. She was Whisper; nothing more, nothing less. Well, maybe she was less than Whisper.

Anyway, what were peoples like her good for; some entertainment and a few good laughs? She did not want to be alive just for that.

_"If I could leave,"_ she said to herself once she was in the safety of her own colorless room. _"I might be able to find something else I'm good for."_

* * *

Yukio sat down on his bed across the clan's compound.

"Yuki-sochi," his mother said. "Do you want some cookies, honey?"

He shook his head and laid back. His mother sat on the edge of the bed.

"This is about Kiya," she stated, mostly to herself.

"Whisper," he corrected. "Her name's Whisper."

His mother sighed and nodded. "What's wrong now?" she asked, concerned. "Is something happening over there?"

"The usual," he said.

"Yukio," she said firmly. "You still haven't told me what 'the usual' is."

He looked at her. "Do you remember what was happening to Kita before she died?"

"Yes," his mother replied sadly. "She was beaten and sexually abused."

Yukio gave his mother a long look.

"Oh my," she dropped the plate of cookies. "That's—that's happening to her?" she choked.

Yukio gave her another look. His mother picked up the cookies, wearing a hard look. Yukio sat up and hopped off his bed.

"Mom, what are you going to do?" he asked, helping her pick up the pieces of plate.

His mother exchanged a glance with her husband, who had been listening outside the door. "I'm going to give her father a piece of my mind," she said, blue eyes blazing with anger. "Throw that away." With that, his mother left the room, and the house, her long blonde hair gracefully flowing behind her. Yukio looked at his father, whose black hair and red eyes were looking back at him, his lightning face markings standing out against his pale skin.

"This is going to be bad," they said together.


	3. Chapter 2

_Whispers in the Dark_

—_Chapter 2—_

_**'This is going to turn out bad,' **_Yukio thought to himself, running down the twisting streets of the Kikei-Kyoshoku compound. _**'Mom's super crazy when she's mad.'**_

"Mom!" he shouted, "C'mon, where are you?"

He shook his head, taking a left turn, hoping to find Whisper's house. _**'This has got to be the one day I get lost in my **_**own**_** compound?' **_he thought angrily.

* * *

There were loud raps on the front door that caught Whisper's attention. _**'Who could that be?'**_ she thought, reluctantly sitting up and making her way to her bedroom door to go down and answer the knocks. She glided silently down the stairs and opened the front door of the mini-mansion.

_"Aunt, what is wrong?"_ she asked, looking the form of her distressed and thoroughly angry distant aunt.

"Where's your father?" she asked as soon as she caught her breath.

Whisper's eyes traveled over her shoulder even though she never turned her head. She bowed, revealing in her aunt's fury. _"He's not available right now."_

"He's passed out, isn't he Kiya—Whisper?" She corrected herself quickly.

Whisper's face was calm and expressionless as she answered. _"Yes, aunt Rei, he is."_

Rei pushed past Whisper, barging into the living room, screaming names at Whisper's father. "You low-life!" she screeched. "How dare you do that to a defenseless_ child_? You out to be taken out into the woods of the Land of Fire and _shot_!"

Whisper's father sat up wearily and shot a glare at Rei.

"Whatever are you talking about, Rei?" he asked, putting on a confused act, but not hiding the smirk from his voice. "I have done nothing wrong."

"Done nothing wrong my butt!" she shouted. "I know what's going down here!"

"Rei, you are very confused." He shook his head, smiling. "If you're listening to Kiya"—Whisper shuddered—"then you're probably confused." He patted Whisper's arm, secretly driving his nails into her shoulder. "She has quite the active imagination."

Whisper didn't once wince in pain. She kept her emotionless act up, only showing a bit of surprise when Rei slapped her father's hands angrily away.

"Don't you lay a hand on her, Kito." she hissed. "Or I'll tear your drunken head _off_."

"I can take that as a threat." Kito narrowed his eyes.

"Then take it as a threat," Rei spat. "Whisper, get your things."

"Why?"

"You're coming with me," she stated. "Get your things."

"I don't have any things." Whisper said.

Rei eyed her grey kimono. "Well, then, let's go." She grabbed Whisper's hand and pulled her out the door, slamming it in her father's face.

"_Rei, you shouldn't have done that,"_ Whisper said. _"He'll be so mad."_

"Oh, forget it," Rei laughed. "I'm not afraid of your father."

'_**But I am.'**_ Whisper thought.

* * *

"Whisper!" Yukio shouted as he saw her and his mother on the back roads of the compound. He sprinted towards her. He stopped in front of her, panting, his black hair going up and down with each pant.

'_**He looks so tall,'**_ Whisper noted, seeing the difference in height between her and Yukio. Until a couple of months ago, they had been the same height. Now, he was over six foot and she was only 5' 10". How much they had both changed since he had found her that one night in July.


End file.
